| Midsummer/winter Sheltermaker |
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| Make it Happen! |
| Ready to the the plunge into sustainable living? |
| Or perhaps you just want to dip your toe in the water, find out what’s involved and take it from there? |
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| Wherever you are coming from in regards the unfolding future there is a Course or Workshop that will not only take you behind the sustainable living scene but show you exactly how you can make it happen for yourself! |
| Check out the Programme! |
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| DOWNLOAD SUMMER PROGRAMME |
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| The EconoSpace Project |
| My own life and the architecture of the EconoSpace are one and the same thing. |
| Working on the roof is where ballet meets monkey man. |
| I enjoy this parody of life even when it strips me to the bone and shreds my illusions. |
| There is no finer companion than your self in such situations. |
| It’s one of the reasons I like to work alone even though this invites all sorts of pretenders to question your sanity. |
| When you get the whiff of challenge that’s when you know that you are alive. |
| In answering one has the silent weight of chi to carry your words to their intended destination. |
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| Putting a roof over one’s head carries weight as an expression because we all understand exactly what it means on every level. |
| That’s where the power and the fear intertwine and confuse us. |
| Power gets its energy from fear but we must accept this package however flawed me might deem it to be. |
| This is where our sheltermaker selves must take up the challenge and raise the roof beams. |
| It’s then we understand that it is fear which serves to wake us up to our own power. |
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| Check out Architecture LIVE |
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| Humpty Dumpty Syndrome |
| Peter Cowman BArch. |
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| The world has a certain Humpty Dumpty quality to it at the moment. As all the king’s horses and all the king’s men strive to put the poor fellow together again we stand and watch as if there might be some possibility of success. |
| As children we resigned ourselves to the fact that this cosmic egg inspired figure was shattered for good and all time. However, in the grown up world we seek to rewrite history by believing that the king’s resources are sufficient to mend the fallen icon’s fatal fractures. |
| So the printing presses run forging money with which to paper over the cracks that have shattered our world. Such illusions are not worth the paper they are printed on. |
| However, where most people in the developed world have been prevailed upon to buy into this illusion they have a vested interest in success of the salvage operations. |
| This directly relates to the markey value of the paper they hold – usually the Title Deeds to their homes – and to the level of repayments which they are obliged to meet in order to retain a modicum of control over their properties and their lives. |
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| This is the reality with which many people are faced and it is the reason why many people are hoping that the king’s men will be successful. |
| Well we all know the eventual outcome of this situation. Tears will have to be shed and we will have to resign ourselves to the fact that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put Humpty Dumpty together again. |
| Complaining about deficient politicians, greedy bankers, rogue traders or dishonest developers is all a waste of time. We have to get in tune with what is happening and craft our way forward from there. |
| More than anything it is the emotions within to this story which demand our attention. We first need to express our fears, to vent our anguish, to hit bottom before we can craft a new reality. |
| The emotions which fuel our quest for life are the self same ones which are manipulated by the economic system to turn us into witless bystanders. We allow this to happen by surrendering control over the essentials of life – the acquisition of food and shelter. |
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| The commercial provision of food and shelter is the foundation of the market economy. |
| Where food has mercifully survived the imposition of rigid legislative control concerning its production, people can still connect with the natural cycles of sowing and reaping in their quest for true reality. |
| On the other hand, the provision of shelter has been the subject to strict legislative control designed to render the inherent emotional value of ‘home’ in purely monetary terms. This allows our net worth to be expressed in terms of current market valuation or degree of indebtedness to the system. |
| It is here, where warm emotions are turned to cold calculations, that we fall prey to illusion. |
| When we surrender control of our space we surrender control of our lives. This process begins by surrendering our time. |
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| The modern economy is built on the credo that Time Is Money. So, when we work we happily exchange our time for money which we then use to provide for our need of food and shelter. So it is the merry-go-round of the modern world is fuelled. |
| But, where Time is eternal it is assumed, because of the belief that Time Is Money, that money is also eternal. It is this illusion which stimulates the demand for endless growth which drains the world of vitality. Our selves and our homes are also drained of vitality as we labour under this illusion. |
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| In the ancient architectural traditions of Vastu and Feng Shui the incorporation into a building a flow of life energy, or ‘chi’, was considered to be essential for the wellbeing of its occupants. |
| It is the absence of chi a building will feel dead – an all to familiar experience in the modern world. |
| To revitalise our buildings we must first revitalise our selves. This process begins by reclaiming our space and our time, relinquishing trust in the king’s men thereby constructing a new reality. |
| This is the brink on which many people now find themselves poised, contemplating the question of where to start. |
| One starts by acknowledging the fact that the flow of life energy, or chi, is invisible and cannot be seen. Chi is perceived through our emotions and is experienced as a feeling of wellbeing. |
| The presence of chi in our homes can bring immense benefit to our lives. To avail of this our lives must be harmonious with the natural world from which chi flows. This invisible realm speaks to our emotional selves, quite different from the realm of rational and logic which speaks to our minds. |
| To attract chi to our homes, whether they be existing or new buildings, we first have to acknowledge the invisible realms from which it emerges. This is largely a matter of persuading one’s mind to share power with one’s intuition. This rebalancing creates a new view of the world and inspires a re-evaluation of the direction, values and commitments of our individual lives. |
| By bringing our lives and homes into closer harmony we can recapture our space and consequently our time. This is vital if we are to live our lives fully. Such a change also offers us the opportunity of acknowledging that the kings men will never be able to put poor old Humpty Dumpty back together again. |
| Such liberation has it consequences – feeling the dead weight of negative equity or feeling locked into a life that is not really true to ones deeper self. All such emotions are characteristic of the major change which the world is experiencing right now. |
| Resisting this change allies us to the illusion that the king’s men are succeeding and so mires us in the disentgrating modern world. To escape this fate we must step outside the familiar into the unknown, embrace our fears, shed our tears and trust that the benificience of the universe will lead us to fulfillment. |
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| © Peter Cowman 2009 |
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1st INTERNATIONAL HEMP BUILDING SYMPOSIUM!
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DATES 16-18 SEPTEMBER 2009 KENMARE BAY HOTEL, KENMARE, CO. KERRY, IRELAND.
Hosted by Hempbuilding.com & Steve Allin, author of ‘Building with Hemp’ and Canadian hemp builder Jayeson Hendyrsan of Hempcrete Natural Building.
To book & get more info go to our website:
or email:
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| MAYO ENERGY AUDIT |
| Andy Wilson, director of Mayo’s Sustainability Institute and editor of Sustainability Magazine, along with colleague Paul Lynch, have produced a fascinating insight into what the future holds energy-wise for Ireland’s third biggest county. |
| This in-dept audit examines in detail Mayo’s current and projected energy demands paying close attention to the practicalities of applying the latest technological solutions to replace current fossil fuel dependence. |
| The primary conclusion of the Audit, apart from the usual call for reductions in consumption, is interesting in that it highlights the potential of forestry in providing for a range of needs, including energy, but not confined to that alone. |
| This is interesting as it pinpoints the needs for all solutions to future energy demand to have a social as well as a commercial aspects to them. |
| The Audit also clearly states that the State’s position regarding the ‘unlimited’ potential of Ireland’s wind and wave energy resources ‘do not stand up to serious scrutiny.’ |
| This is a wake-up call not just for Mayo but for the entire country. |
| However it is the Audit’s focus on simple and affordable solutions that underwrites its success – for example the planting of 50,000 hectares broadleaves and conifers to provide not only for future energy needs but also to provide a firm foundation for the future social and economic development of the county. |
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| ORDER MAYO ENERGY AUDIT |
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| THE FUTURE OF FORESTRY |
| The potential of forestry, not only in respect of meeting Ireland’s future energy needs, but also in regards to providing a firm foundation for social, economic and even spiritual development, was the subject of a fascinating talk by Andrew St. Ledger of The Woodland League at the recent Eco Living Festival in Co. Leitrim. |
| Andrew not only detailed the practical applications of forestry on a local level – the provision of food, building materials, medicine, shelter, amenity and so on – but also the potential forest development has to connect us back into natural cycles. |
| It is fascinating that the Mayo Energy Audit shares the same conclusions. |
| Even more fascinating was Andrew’s explanation that the EU sees forestry as the foundation of rural development something the Irish government is loath to embrace! |
| For more on this read:
‘The case of Ireland
Funding Forests into the Future
How the European Fund for Rural Development affects Europe’s forests’ |
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| Next Sheltermaker: Lughnasadh |